South Street had more to do with seafaring men than lawyers. It was a
strange thoroughfare along which to have searched for a legal adviser.
Enoch’s office, which we have already peeped into, and which so rarely
saw its owner, lay tucked away as snug as a stowaway in the old
building he owned, sandwiched in between two even older structures, two
long-established ship-chandler’s warehouses, whose lofts were pungent
with the odor of tarred rope, and whose iron-bound thresholds led to
dark interiors, where one could be accommodated with anything from a
giant anchor down to a vessel’s port and starboard lights.
A raw, cold street in the short winter days, taking the brunt of
blizzards and cruel winds, whirling snow and biting cold, fog-swept, or
shimmering in heat, greasy and roughly paved. A street to stand rough
knocks from rough men, who owned the clothes they stood in, and little
else; clothes in which they worked, drank, and quarrelled, joked, and
swore, shipped on long voyages, and returned; men whose sentiment was
indelibly vouched for by the ballet-girl tattooed on their brawny arms,
and whose love of country was guaranteed by the Union Jack or the Stars
and Stripes--often by both--pricked in indigo and vermilion on their
solid chests and further embellished with hearts, true-lovers’ knots,
and anchors.
It was an odoriferous, happy-go-lucky sort of street, where things
had an odor all their own. Bundles of rawhides lay stacked on greasy
platforms. Drafty interiors held stout casks of oil, gallons of the
best spar varnish, sails, pulley-blocks, and tow for calking--scores
of ship necessities in solid brass and galvanized iron made for
rough usage in all kinds of weather--capstans, rudders, cleats,
robust lanterns, reliable compasses, their needles steadily pointing
north--and a saloon within reach of every reeling sailor.
It was the street of the stranger from far-off lands, of able seamen
whose sturdy boots had knocked about the worst sections of Port Said,
Marseilles, Singapore, or Bilbao--a street where honest ships poked
their bowsprits up to its very edge, a long, floating barrier, a maze
of masts, spars, and rigging, of vessels safe in port, whose big hulls
lay still in the flotsam and jetsam and swill of the harbor, where the
hungry, garrulous gulls wheeled, gossiped, and gorged themselves like
scavengers.
There was an atmosphere of adventure, of the freedom of the sea along
its length, that the staid old business streets back of it could not
boast of; that charm, sordid as it was, that holds the sailor and his
nickels in port, close to his quay, for he rarely ventures as far
inland as the city’s midst. At night jewels of lights hung in the maze
of rigging, others gleamed forth a broad welcome from the saloons. When
these went out, only the jewels in the rigging remained, leaving the
old, busy street of the day dark and deserted, save for an occasional
prowler of the night--or a stray cat foraging for food.
There were women, too--fat ogresses in cheap finery, skeletons in
rouge and rags, their ratlike eyes ever watchful for their prey--and
now and then some shuffling human derelict, those who have no definite
destination, neither friends nor home nor bed nor bunk to go to; worse
off even than the poor sailor in port, robbed, cajoled, flattered,
tempted, and always enticed, down to his last nickel.
None knew them better than Enoch. Many an empty pocket he brightened
with a coin. Others he helped out of more serious difficulties. Had he
accepted all the chattering monkeys and profane parrots he had been
offered from time to time in grateful remembrance, he would have had
enough to have started a bird-store.
It was along this street that Ebner Ford picked his way the next
morning to Enoch’s office, eager for the interview, and never more
confident of selling him enough of his laundry stock, to be rid of old
Mrs. Miggs and her lawyer forever.
At five minutes to ten his lean figure might have been seen dodging
among the trucking, slipping around crates and bales, and only stopping
now and then to verify the address on Enoch’s note.
So elated was he over the prospect of the interview that he entered
Enoch’s building whistling a lively tune, continued snatches of it up
in the shaky elevator, insisted he had “an appointment at ten with Mr.
Crane,” and was led half-way down the corridor by the Irish janitor
to Enoch’s modest door, which he opened briskly with a breezy “Well,
neighbor, ain’t a minute late, am I?” and with a laugh, ending in a
broad, friendly grin, shot out his long hand in greeting.
Simultaneously Enoch swung sharply around in his desk chair with a
savage glance; not only did he refuse the proffered hand, but left his
visitor staring at him bewildered.
“Sit down!” snapped Enoch.
“Well, say!” drawled Ford. “Ain’t you a little mite nervous this
mornin’, friend?”
“Sit down!” repeated Enoch curtly, indicating the empty chair beside
his desk. “Do not delude yourself for an instant, sir, that you are
here to interest me in your laundry stock.”
“Well, that beats all,” declared Ford. “You to be all-fired interested
in your note. That’s what you said, wa’n’t it?”
“I’ve been enlightened as to the precise value of that laundry stock
of yours, sir,” came Enoch’s sharp reply--“your gilt-edged securities
relative to the Household Gem as well.”
Ford started.
“Have, eh? Well, it’s at par. That’s what you wanted--er--that’s what
you said you wanted,” he blurted out, slinking into the empty chair and
fumbling his dusty derby nervously.
[Illustration: “Well, neighbor, ain’t a minute late, am I?”]
“Par!” snapped Enoch. “It’s at zero, and you know it. Below zero, I
should say, judging from all reports.” And before Ford could reply:
“Let us come to the point. You are in arrears for your rent, sir.”
Ford gaped at him in amazement.
“I refer, sir, to your apartment in Waverly Place; with the exception
of your first month’s payment, you have not paid a dollar’s worth of
rent since you moved in, not a penny, sir; rents are made to be paid,
sir, not avoided. You have not even made the slightest excuse or
apology to your landlord over the delay. Any other landlord would have
ousted you from the premises.”
Ford laid his dusty derby on the desk, planting his long hands over his
bony knees, his small eyes regarding Enoch with a curious expression.
“Oh, I haven’t, have I?” he exclaimed. “Wouldn’t like to take a bet on
it, would you?”
“No, sir!” cried Enoch, squaring back in his seat. “You have not, not a
penny of it. Can you deny it?”
“What’s my rent got to do with you?” returned Ford. “You seem to be
almighty interested in other folks’ rents.”
“I’ve let you run on,” continued Enoch firmly, “so far without
troubling you.”
“Oh, _you have_, have you? Well, say, you take the cake! Talk as if you
owned the place.”
Enoch sprang out of his chair, his under lip shot forward.
“I do,” said he.
“You what?” gasped Ford, opening his small eyes wide. “You don’t mean
to tell me that there house is _yourn_?”
“Yes, sir--it’s mine, from cellar to roof. If you want further proof of
it,” he cried, wrenching open a drawer of his desk, fumbling among some
papers and flinging out on his desk the document of sale in question,
stamped, sealed, and witnessed, “there it is.”
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!”
“Jiggered or not, sir, your lease is up! You are behind in your rent,
and out you go.”
“Well, hold on now; I guess we can fix up this little matter,” returned
Ford, with a sheepish grin. “Hadn’t no idea it was _you_, friend, who
owned the house, or I wouldn’t have kept you waitin’.”
“I can assure you,” retorted Enoch, “there is no friendship concerned
in this matter. You will desist, sir, in calling me your friend; that
phase of our acquaintanceship never existed.”
For a moment neither spoke.
“See here, neighbor,” Ford resumed by way of explanation, and in a tone
that was low and persuasive, “with our increasin’ business I’ve been
under some mighty heavy expenses lately; new machinery has exacted
heavy payments. Our long list of canvassers on the road’s been quite
an item in salaries. S’pose I was to let you have a little of our
gilt-edged at par, as collateral for the rent?”
“Stop, sir!” cried Enoch. “Do you take me for a fool? Your laundry
stock is not worth the paper it is printed on--wasn’t at the time you
sold it to Mrs. Miggs.” He slammed his closed fist down on the desk.
“There is not a judge on the bench that would take four minutes to
decide a case against you for embezzlement. It’s as plain as daylight.”
Ford stared at him dumfounded. He started to speak, but Enoch cut him
short in a towering rage.
“You’ve swindled my friend, Miss Ann Moulton, as well,” he cried. “You
took seven thousand five hundred dollars from her in payment for your
worthless stock--from a helpless lady--half she owned in the world,
you despicable hound--from a helpless woman.” Ford reddened. “Half, I
say--from the support of a sister who is ill--a poor, pitiful wreck of
a woman dying of consumption.”
“Oh! Now see here, Crane--go slow--let me explain.”
“Systematically swindled her, robbed her, talked her into it--persuaded
her until she gave you her check. Your kind stop at nothing.” His voice
rang out over the half-open transom and down the corridor. Ford sat
gripping his chair.
“I tell you, Miss Moulton ain’t lost a penny of her money,” he
stammered. “What I done for her I done out of neighborly kindness.”
“Stop, sir! Don’t lie to me. Answer me one question. How much of Miss
Moulton’s money have you got left?”
Ford glowered at him in silence.
“Answer me! How much have you got left? I intend to get at the bottom
of this damnable business. What you’ve got left of Miss Moulton’s
money, you’ll return to her.”
“Why, there ain’t a penny of it missin’,” declared Ford blandly, paling
visibly.
“You call a credit in your bank of five thousand two hundred and some
odd dollars, nothing missing? Where’s the rest?”
“Who told you that?” cried Ford, half rising, with a sullen gleam in
his eyes.
“Your bank!” cried Enoch sharply. “Its president, my old friend, John
Mortimer, told me. Under criminal circumstances such information is not
difficult to obtain.”
Enoch drove his hands in his pockets and started to pace the room. Ford
was the first to break the silence that ensued. His voice had a whine
in it, and most of the color had left his lean cheeks.
“You don’t want to ruin me, do yer?” he said thickly.
“Ruin you! No one can ruin you! You were born ruined! Answer
me--where’s the rest of Miss Moulton’s money?”
“Spent,” faltered Ford. “You don’t suppose a man can live on nothin’,
do yer? We all have our little ups and downs in business. Fluctuations,
they call ’em. Why, the biggest men with the biggest business acumen,
in the biggest business deals in the world have ’em. I ain’t no
exception. That’s what all business is--chuck full of little ups and
downs. No man ever complains when business is boomin’--only boomin’ is
never regular. Good times pay for the bad. A feller has to have grit to
weather ’em. Then, if we didn’t risk nothin’, we wouldn’t have nothin’.
What does the Bible say? Sow and ye shall reap.”
His voice faltered weakly.
“See here,” returned Enoch. “If I’ve got the slightest pity for you,
you personally are not responsible for it. Your stepdaughter is
adorable. Your wife is an honest woman.”
“There ain’t no better,” declared Ford meekly, moistening his lips with
a long finger that shook. “Girlie, too; her ideas ain’t mine, but I
ain’t got nothin’ agin her.”
“Good gad, sir! I should hope not. You have not a thought in common!
No dearer child ever lived! The very soul of honesty and sincerity--a
joy to my house, sir! A joy to every one who has come in contact with
her. That you should have so little love and respect for her as to have
acted as you have is astounding!”
“Girlie thinks an awful lot of you,” returned Ford, heaving a sigh,
Enoch’s tender allusion to his stepdaughter bringing with it his first
ray of hope. “Ever stopped to think,” he went on, with sudden courage,
“what this hull business will mean to her when she knows it? See here,
neighbor, you’re human, I take it. ’Tain’t human in no man to crowd
another feller to ruin like you’re crowdin’ me. It’ll like to kill my
wife when she hears it. As for girlie--well, you know what it’ll mean
to her--her little home gone, after all I’ve tried to do to make it
pleasant for ’em both. S’pose I was to tell you I’ll make good--only
you’ve got to give me time; that I’ll pay the rent and give every cent
back to Miss Moulton--square her up as clean as a whistle.”
Enoch turned sharply.
“On what, I’d like to know? And when? Out of the chimeric profits of
your vast laundry business, I suppose?”
“Hold on, neighbor, not so fast. I ain’t told you all. S’pose you was
to give me a couple of weeks’ time. I’ve got a little property I’ve
been bangin’ on to up-State. Four neat buildin’ lots on the swellest
outskirts of Troy--Fairview Park, they call it--neatest lookin’ place
you ever see; gas and water piped right from the city. I’ve been
waitin’ for the right party, but if I’ve got to sell now, Crane,
I’ll do it. At the lowest figger they’ll square up all these little
differences between us--Mrs. Miggs and Miss Moulton will get their
satisfy, you’ll get your rent, and girlie and Emma won’t know no more
than if it never happened.”
“You’ll pay Miss Moulton first,” declared Enoch firmly. “I am not
concerned with Mrs. Miggs’s affairs. Her own lawyer can attend to them;
as for the rent, I wish you to understand plainly, that if it was not
for your wife and stepdaughter----”
He ceased speaking. His teeth clenched. There was little doubt in
Ford’s mind that the worst was over; that Enoch was softening. He
already felt more at his ease, and for the first time leaned back in
his chair, and with the vestige of a forced smile crossed his long
legs, feeling that half the battle was won. What he exactly intended
to do he had not the slightest idea. Mrs. Miggs’s lawyer had given him
until noon. It was now past eleven. He decided to wire him: “Sending
check to-morrow.” Meanwhile Enoch had resumed his pacing before him,
muttering to himself words that even Ebner Ford’s quick ears did not
catch.
“How about this property of yours?” cried Enoch with renewed heat.
“Your four lots in Troy? You are rather vague, sir, about their value.
This Fairview Park you speak of? Anything there but gas and water-pipes
and a chance for the right party, as you say to come along? Any
railroad or street-car communication that would persuade any one to
build?”
Ford’s lean jaws, to which the color had now returned, widened in a
condescending smile over Enoch’s abject ignorance.
“Fairview Park!” he exclaimed with quick enthusiasm. “Why, neighbor,
it’s a bonanza! Has any one _built_ on it? Well, I guess yes! Take
the Jenkins mansion alone--the candy king. Mansard roof alone cost a
fortune, to say nothin’ of a dozen other prominent homes--brand-new
and up to date--not a fence in the hull park. Everybody neighborly.
Course, soon as we get our railroad-station things will boom. Quick
transportation to the city and plenty of fresh air for the children.
Come to think of it, I was lucky to have bought when I did. Got in on
the ground floor, ’twixt you and me, and ain’t never regretted it. Big
men like Jenkins have been pesterin’ me a dozen times to sell, but I’ve
held on, knowin’ I could double my money. Property has already advanced
fifty per cent out there in the last few years, friend, and is----”
“Stop, sir!” cried Enoch. “I believe we have already discussed the
question of friendship between us.”
“Oh, well now, see here, Crane.”
“In future, sir, you will address me as Mr. Crane. I trust that is
clear to you, Mr. Ford.”
“Well, suit yourself. What’s the use of our bein’ so all-fired
unfriendly? Neighbors, ain’t we? Livin’ under the same roof!”
“You are living under _my_ roof, sir! Not I under _yours_! That you
continue to live there is purely due to the presence of a woman who has
had the misfortune to marry you, and a stepdaughter--thank Heaven, she
is not your daughter--whom I hope, with all my heart, some day will
be rid of you forever. You ask me for two weeks’ time. Very well, you
shall have it. I trust you fully realize your situation. Remember, I
shall hold you to your promise in regard to Miss Moulton. Mr. Ford, I
have nothing more to say to you--good morning.”
Ford picked up his dusty derby slowly from the desk, and as slowly rose
to his feet.
Enoch, with his hands plunged deep in his trousers pockets, stood
grim and silent, gazing irritably at the floor; if he saw Ford’s
outstretched hand reach toward him slowly across the desk between them,
he did not move a muscle in recognition.
“Well, so long,” ventured Ford.
“Good morning,” repeated Enoch gruffly, without raising his head.
“Well, now, that’s too bad,” drawled Ford, slowly withdrawing his hand.
“I was just thinkin’ if you and me was to go down for a little straight
Bourbon you’d feel better.”
Enoch jerked up his head.
“Drink with you!” he exclaimed sharply. “Drink with _you_!” His keen
eyes blazed.
“Well, now, that wouldn’t hurt the quality of the whiskey any, would
it?” grinned Ford. “Sorter smooth down the remainin’ little rough
places between us--warm us both up into a more friendly understandin’,
seem’ I’ve agreed to do for you all any man can do for another--give
you my bona-fide guarantee.”
Enoch sprang forward, his clenched hands planted on his desk, his face
livid.
“Get out, sir!” he shouted. For an instant his voice stopped in his
throat, then broke out with a roar: “Out, sir! Out! When you have
anything more substantial to offer me than an invitation to a rum mill
I will listen to you.”
Before this volley of rage Ford backed away from him, backed out
through the door that Enoch swung open to him, and the next instant
slammed in his face with a sound that reverberated through the whole
building.
* * * * *
Any other man but Ebner Ford would have turned down the corridor,
dazed and insulted. As for Enoch’s door, it was not the first that had
been slammed in his face. He could recall a long list of exits in his
business career that were so alike in character they had ceased to make
any serious impression upon him. His rule had been to allow time for
the enraged person to cool off, and to tackle him again at the earliest
opportunity--preferably after luncheon, when experience had taught him
men were always in a more genial and approachable humor.
All of his past interviews, however, had been trivial compared to
this with Enoch. He had entered his office keyed up with confidence
and exuberance, and had backed out of it under the fury of a man who
had laid bare his character and every secret detail of what he chose
to call his “own private affairs”; bad enough when he arrived but ten
times worse now as he realized the man he had to deal with.
Three things, however, were comforting. Enoch’s affirmed respect for
his wife and stepdaughter in regard to the overrent; his open, almost
paternal affection for Sue, and his word that he would give him two
weeks in which to settle with Miss Moulton. As for old Mrs. Miggs, he
decided to send her a check for half the amount out of Miss Ann’s money
and see what would happen.
That he drank his Bourbon alone on the first corner he reached, the
bartender agreeably changing another one of Miss Ann’s dollars,
only helped to sharpen his wits. He stood on the sawdusted floor of
the saloon, at the bar, hemmed in between the patched elbows of a
boatswain’s mate and a common sailor, ruminating over the overwhelming
events of the morning.
Now that he was out of Enoch’s drastic presence and voice, he felt at
his ease, and more so when he had laid another one of Miss Ann’s dimes
on the bar, freshly wiped from the beer spill, and ordered a second
Bourbon.
“Thinks a heap of girlie,” he mused. “Wa’n’t so savage about the
rent, after all.” As he thought of Sue there flashed through his mind
an idea, so sudden that he started, and his small eyes sparkled, so
perfectly logical to him that he grinned and wondered why, during the
whole of the strenuous interview, he had not thought of it before.
Instead, he had clutched at the idea of “Fairview Park,” his
entire acquaintance with its existence dating from a real-estate
advertisement he had read in a newspaper several weeks old, he adding
to its popularity and magnificence by capping the mythical mansion
of the candy king with a mansard roof worth a fortune, and further
embellishing its undesirable acres with the hope of a railroad-station.
Only the air changed in Fairview Park; the rest had lain a flat
failure for years, the home of crows and the sign-boards they avoided,
announcing the best cigar and the cheapest soap.
That Enoch would investigate the truth of his statements gave him
little apprehension. He was certain he had convinced him of his good
faith, building lots and all. What elated him now was his sudden
idea--an inspiration-and his first step in that direction took him out
of the saloon and on his way to see Lamont.
On a crowded corner in Fulton Street a newsboy bawled in his passing
ear:
“Here yer are! Git the extry, boss! All about the big club scandal----”
Ford stopped and glanced at the head-line, “Millionaire Slaps Clubman’s
Face,” and below it saw the face in question.
It was Jack Lamont’s.